Sugar Bowl Resort is teaming up with Boarding for Breast Cancer for the fourth annual Shred the Love benefit March 3.

The resort will have a rail jam contest in the Switching Yard Terrain Park, with all entry fees from the event benefiting B4BC and their mission to provide breast cancer education, prevention and support programs for young people and the action sports community at large.

Adding awareness to the cause and contributing additional funds, pink Sugar Bowl pass lanyards will be on sale for $4, and $1 from every Coors Light poured that day will go to benefit B4BC’s efforts. The resort will also host a silent auction from 10am-2pm.

Entry is $25 and registration is from 8:30-10am for the boarding contest. Competition is form 11am-1pm in Coldstream Terrain Park.

For more information, call (530) 426.9000.

The Mental Health Division of the El Dorado County Health and Human Services Agency in South Lake Tahoe has a new home.

The Mental Health Division moved to the El Dorado County Government Center, 1360 Johnson Blvd., Ste. 103. Staff is sharing space with the Public Health Division. The new telephone number is (530) 573.7970.

In addition to the Johnson Boulevard facility, Mental Health Division staff will operate an afternoon program several times each week, called The Wellness Center, at the senior center at 3050 Lake Tahoe Blvd., South Lake Tahoe.

The 6th annual Champions for Children event is April 25 in Placerville and April 26 in South Lake Tahoe.

Both events start at 9am, with a noon lunch to follow.

This year’s them is “Making Your Organization Parent and Family Friendly – Strategies for Effective Parent Engagement” with Joni Samples as presenter.

This professional development opportunity is designed to help people develop tools and strategies for effective parent engagement in community based organizations, schools and agencies.

For more information, contact Elizabeth Blakemore at (530) 295.2312.

By Kathryn Reed

A South Lake Tahoe man had time to call 911, but not enough time to escape the fire that engulfed the bedroom of his trailer.

Glenn Sauls, 82, was found by firefighters and paramedics in his trailer at 1080 Julie Lane about 2:30am Feb. 5. He later died at Barton Memorial Hospital from smoke inhalation.

“He breathed in so much smoke,” Gareth Harris, chief of Lake Valley Fire Protection District, told Lake Tahoe News.

A South Tahoe man died from smoke inhalation when his trailer caught fire. Photo/Lake Valley Fire

While South Lake Tahoe was the primary agency to fight the fire, Lake Valley handled the investigation because South Tahoe doesn’t have a fire marshal.

It appears Sauls had been smoking in bed, Harris said. This is based on the number of cigarette butts found in that room and that the fire was contained to that area.

However, smoke and heat damaged the entire trailer, rendering it a total loss.

While the trailer met the standards when built, fire officials say without having smoke detectors in every bedroom and outside of them, it could mean people won’t know danger looms.

In this case, the one smoke detector was in the kitchen at the other end of the trailer.

Harris also stressed the importance of not smoking in bed.

Lake Valley will install smoke detectors for free for people who cannot afford them or for older residents so they are not climbing on ladders.

A San Jose woman died last week while skiing at Northstar in Truckee.

Cindy Tucker Mulcahy, 52, was on the Castle Peak trail about 2pm Feb. 23 when ski patrollers found her unconscious.

Mulcahy, who was wearing a helmet, later died at Tahoe Forest Hospital in Truckee.

Northstar officials did not provide any more information.

 — Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Carlos Alcalá, Sacramento Bee

The tale of the Wakamatsu Colony is well-known in Japan, but obscure in California – though it took place right here.

Placerville poet Brigit Truex is making a small effort to change that.

Truex’s book, “Strong as Silk,” was published this month, telling the Wakamatsu story in an unusual combination of fiction and haiku.

In the late 1860s, a group of samurai-class men and women – losers in a Japanese civil war – established the colony in rural El Dorado County and tried to produce silk and tea. It was the first Japanese settlement in North America.

A few years ago, Truex came across a news article about the colony.

“I never heard this story,” she said. “It just sort of caught my eye.”

She began to write some poems and do some research to learn more about it.

Whether through bad planning, bad weather or sabotage, the colony had failed after a few years and its inhabitants scattered with hardly a trace.

Read the whole story

AARP tax aide is a free volunteer-run tax preparation and assistance service offered to all taxpayers who are low- and middle-income,with special attention to those 60 and older.

The help is available at South Lake Tahoe Senior Center, 3050 Lake Tahoe Blvd., on Friday and Saturdays through April 14 from 9am-1pm, and on Thursdays through April 12 from 2-6pm.

Publisher’s note: This is reprinted from the September-October 1988 Lake Tahoe Historical Society newsletter.

Translucent green water, sheer cliffs, a spectacular waterfall, pines that march down to the water’s edge, Emerald Bay has always drawn visitors to revel in its beauty. Called “the most beautiful inland harbor in the world”, this western arm of Lake Tahoe with its abundance of natural attributes also contains the only true island on the lake.

We do not know what the Washoe called it but it was Eagle Bay by the 1860s, so named for the American Eagles that nested on its southern shore. A pretentious villa and wharf were built at the head of the bay in 1863 by millionaire transportation magnate Ben Holladay. The care-taker of this first summer residence was the first person to live there year round.

Painters, tourists, camera enthusiasts and reporters began to spread the fame of this jewel in the Sierra about the time its name was listed on an 1874 map as Emerald Bay. It became a favorite summer resort and excursion destination by 1880. With the completion of the Rim of the Lake road, Emerald Bay could be seen from above, an even more spectacular and moving experience than entering its protected waters. By 1920, there was a permanent resort on its shores with cottages, steamer landing, post office and dance pavilion. Vikingsholm, another villa built near Eagle creek in 1928, is now open to tours and maintained by the NPS.

In 1910, a scheme was proposed that would provide water for Nevada farmers by lowering the level of the lake by almost five feet. It was feared that this plan, abandoned for many reasons, would have cut Emerald Bay off from the rest of the lake Over the years, its slopes have been denuded by logging and slashed by massive slides. It has frozen over and has been the site of more than one wrecked boat. It now draws more tourists each day than the roads or parking lots can handle. In spite of it all, Emerald Bay will always remain the most dramatic and scenic spot in an area of spectacular beauty.

• This is the current El Dorado-Tahoe roadwork schedule for Caltrans.

• Phase I of Lake Tahoe Books and Art – the bookstore located in the Village Center in South Lake Tahoe – comes to an end March 4.

• Truckee has been named one of the world’s best ski destinations by the editors of National Geographic Adventure.

• Tanner Tingey of Fresno, who owns a second home near Tahoe City, and Tahoe City landscaper Trent Udlock must pay the TRPA a $20,000 fine for chopping down five trees without a permit.

• El Dorado County Auditor Joe Harn is not releasing money to Garden Valley Fire District. Find out why in this letter. This is the district that just signed a 10-year, $1 million no-out-clause contract with its chief.

•  There is an open house for internal medicine and pediatric physician Allison Steinmetz on Feb. 28 from 4-6pm at 1090 3rd St., South Lake Tahoe.

By Sean Whaley, Nevada News Bureau

CARSON CITY — A campaign has been launched aimed at helping truck drivers and truck stop employees become more aware of how to identify underage children being forced into acts of prostitution.

The Nevada Trucking Association and the Nevada Petroleum Marketers Association said the campaign will use materials developed by a national organization, Truckers Against Trafficking, to help truck drivers and truck stop employees identify the behavior of underage children being forced to engage in prostitution so they can report such incidents to the authorities.

“The Nevada Trucking Association and its members are sickened by the evils of human trafficking,” said Chief Executive Officer Paul Enos. “Truckers are the eyes and ears of our highways and truck stops, so we are asking truckers to notify the authorities when they see signs of these activities.”

Peter Krueger association executive with the Petroleum Marketers, said: “The Nevada Petroleum Marketers Association is committed to make this effort our top priority for 2012. Our members can make a difference by spotting and reporting underage trafficking at truck stops across Nevada.”

Kendis Paris, national director of Truckers Against Trafficking, said: “Having the support of Nevada truckers and truck stops will prove vital to the work of Truckers Against Trafficking. This means that thousands more will become educated and equipped about the realities of domestic sex trafficking and how they can help end it. When the trucking and truck stop associations take the lead in their state it causes their membership to understand the importance of this issue and get behind it themselves.”

The Nevada Trucking Association will distribute informational DVDs to its member companies to use during training, orientation and safety seminars. Wallet-size cards will also be provided to members with information about how to recognize trafficking and what to do when it is suspected.

The Nevada Petroleum Marketers Association will use its weekly email bulletins, quarterly magazine and website to promote awareness. It will also make the materials available from Truckers Against Trafficking to its members.

Assemblyman John Hambrick, R-Las Vegas, who has pursued legislation aimed at strengthening Nevada’s laws against human trafficking, said, “I am very pleased that the Nevada trucking industry and the truck stop owners have entered the war against human trafficking. This scourge must be stopped. All of us have seen the media reports on children as young as eleven being prostituted by men who are making thousands upon thousands of dollars selling the bodies of our children. We now have two allies that can have a direct effective on fighting this war.”

In a telephone interview, Hambrick said there was anecdotal evidence presented at a press conference in Southern Nevada announcing the new campaign that it has been successful in combating the problem.

“I think there will be a new dynamic on fighting this problem,” he said. “Primarily now we’ll have people on the interstates. Many times society always thinks this is downtown, in an urban area, whether it is on the Strip or in Reno. But we always forget that these truckers are going all over the country.

“It’s a team effort,” Hambrick said. “We all have to pull together. Society has to pull together to solve this problem.”

The Department of Justice estimates 100,000 to 300,000 of America’s children are at risk for entering the sex for sale industry each year. Human trafficking is estimated to be the second most lucrative crime in world with annual revenue of $32 billion.